A New Life
by Hiaki
Summary: An unnamed scientist, after having trespassed into Arceus's territory, is reincarnated as his creation, Icarus. With only inklings of what he once was, he struggles to better understand himself, as well as his surrounding.
1. The beginning

"Sir? Sir! Wake up!" came the muffled sound of a woman's voice. It had sounded oddly familiar, but I couldn't quite get my brain to register who's it was. The wake-up call wasn't for me, however, as I heard the light sound of shifting soon afterward.

"This had better be good," came the groggy reply, this time from a male-sounding voice. The sleepiness was quickly lifted after the female voice spoke only six words:

"We got a reading...It's alive."

"And you doubted me," I found myself thinking, feeling rather smug in my semi-conscious state, hearing a chair screech it's complaint against gravity as it slid a short distance across the floor.

"No foolin'? I don't believe it. That occult bastard did it...He actually played "God"."

"I'm right here, ass-hat," came my mental reply, the smugness that had taken hold replaced by the grumbling of my thought. Just who did he think he was, throwing something like that at me like I wasn't even there. The girl's voice broke that train of thought when she spoke up again, sounding a bit disheartened.

"Shame he's not here to witness this himself." I was about to say something in protest to the claim of my absence, but the guy's voice picked up before I could.

"Yeah...But, he just had to go and get himself killed, didn't he?" was what left the male's mouth, which cast a feeling of confused dread to wash over me.

"I'm...dead?" I thought to myself, the male carrying on with more gripes before the sounds cut out completely. I sat there, in silence, for what seemed like the longest time before sounds returned to me.

"Is it that surprising?" a voice called out, shattering the quiet with it's deep tone. "For every life that begins, so must it end; souls, eternally cycling through life and death, just as the seasons chase each other without end...That is the very essence of being." Before I had a chance to say anything, a massive white creature with tattered black wings appeared in front of me. "Come, you have been summoned to serve a higher purpose."

The trip had passed in an awkward silence, my mind trying to figure out exactly who would use Giratina, supposed gate-keeper to the underworld (or "afterlife", if you preferred) as a mere messenger boy and guide.

"Patience; you'll have your answers soon enough," his voice echoed. I could only issue out a meek nod before we stopped at the base of an all-too familiar landmass; Mt. Coronet. "Head up to the top of the mountain. From there, you will be guided to the one that calls for you. I, however, must return to my duties. May it be many years before we meet again," the Giratina instructed, ending with a slight but solemn bow before flickering out of sight.

The climb up the mountain had been less eventful then the journey toward it, though it still took several hours to reach the summit, a place called Spear Pillar. Imagine my surprise when I saw how flat the place was. Aside from the occasional column, Spear Pillar was very much level. Rather disappointing, as I had expected the name to be more fitting, especially due to the fact that it was the peak of the mountain that literally divided the Sinnoh Region in half.

As I began exploring the destination that Giratina had set for me, I took notice of the faint white outline of a staircase that led upward into the darkening twilight sky. Figuring that the said structure was what he was referring to, I took to its Ascension. The staircase seemed to continue on forever, climbing higher and higher into the heavens, with only a few steps of the clear staircase revealing themselves at a time. Stars were out and shinning in earnest as the half moon glowed without restraint by the time I had reached level ground, the sun having already given up its daily spot to shine on another part of the world. A dark cloud obscured my view ahead, but a gentle breeze was pushing it slowly out of my line of sight.

As the cloud pushed passed me, I became aware that I wasn't alone up here in the sky. The creature held itself up majestically on four legs, its body coated in white fur, contrasting it's black underbelly, and, while its light green face stood out quite a bit, its most noticeable and prominent feature was the large, golden ring that circled around its midsection. The regal air it gave off as it stared into my very being with its red eyes was unnerving. I almost broke out into a run to escape its piercing gaze, but the staircase had masked itself with the sky, and one false step would mean the end of me.

Finally, it broke its stare, allowing itself a small, knowing smirk before speaking, its speech graceful and direct. It said only three simple words, but no others were needed then: "I am God."


	2. Birth

"...God?" I found myself repeating to the odd creature.

"In a manner of speaking," the white thing said. "Not quite the middle-aged, full-bearded, glow-stick of a man you were expecting, huh?"

"Not in the least," I managed to say, slightly recovering from the shock.

"Seems you haven't noticed yet, then. So, nice guy that I am, I'll fill in the gaps for you. I am called Arceus," he started, motioning toward himself. "And you, Mister "I-can-make-life-too", are under my jurisdiction. Basically, it dumbs down to "I am your creator" now. Well, in part. You gave it form; I just gave it life."

"Wait wait wait..." I stammered out, trying to make sense of it all. "You're Arceus," I started, getting a nod from the quadruped. "The Pokemon that, according to mythology, shaped the universe with its thousand arms." Another nod.

"Never said that they were mine, though," he added.

"Actually, it does," came my reply. This seemed to warrant a sigh from Arceus.

"Figures...Somewhere along the line, some blockhead decides that it'd be cool to add a fib or two to "spice" things up a bit. It's that idiocy that turns fact into fiction, 'cause then that lie, buried in truth, becomes part of the story. Story becomes tall tale, tale becomes legend, legend becomes myth, and I wind up sounding like a freak of nature. I mean...who's ever heard of ANYTHING with a thousand arms. All I had was four legs, and a hell of a lot of time on my hands...figuratively speaking." A small pause followed behind the small speech. "Sorry, I ranted. You were saying?"

"And, all of a sudden," I started again, taking a moment to try and beat back the notion that this thing wasn't quite right in the head by remembering what I was gonna say next, "I, a human, fall under your care now?"

"Close, but not quite," came Arceus's final reply to my questioning. "Think of it more like a transfer over anything else." That managed to confuse me a bit. I can only guess that the confusion was evident on my face due to what Arceus said next. "Lemme try it this way; Why, do you think, you, a human, can understand what I'm saying?" he asked, almost grinning. Reminded me of a kid who was trying to hold back a secret, what with that 'I know something you don't' grin.

"Because you can speak in human dialect?" I answered, probably not sounding too sure in it. Can you blame me? This thing was confusing.

"Ah...not quite. I can, but it's pretty bad...lack of practice and all, but that's beside the point," he said. A bright light flashed in front of him, causing me to shield my eyes, while Arceus continued to speak. "You can understand me not because I'm speaking you're language...Quite the opposite, actually. You understand me because we're both Pokemon," he announced, the light fading away to reveal a mirror.

The form that was staring back at me through the mirror was not one I was familiar with. The face that looked back at me, for starters, was in the middle of his chest, with no "head" above it. A row of teeth lined up around the stomach, providing its mouth, with slightly elongated canines poking out from under, what I assumed to be, the lips, traveling a short ways. The eyes that stared back at mine were located where the chest muscles were, their exact color hard to make out with only the night around us. The arms and legs, while not directly attached to the torso, were marked in part with metal bands, reminiscent of medieval knight armor, though missing any joint coverings. The forearms/hands and lower legs/feet were gauntlets and greaves respectively, each with four and three digit places (also respectively), the hands having three fingers and a thumb each. "This can't be right," I spoke, the metallic face that stared back at me mimicking my dismay flawlessly. "I'm..."

"Your little pet project's end result," Arceus finished for me. "Well, second project, really, but I'm fairly certain that you're wondering "How'd this happen?" or "Why?" too much to have corrected me." My mind was still trying to wrap itself around this newest development to give any actual response, though that hardly stopped him from continuing. "Remember that Eevee you had studied in order to harmlessly force a new evolutionary reaction from? Injecting it with synthesized Ghost Pokemon DNA, which I imagine must have been rather hard to create...You remember what happened afterward, right? You got your reaction, creating a currently one-of-a-kind evolutionary branch for it, though at the cost of several worker's lives when it went berserk, stopping only after it had tired itself out, to the point of exhaustion. What was it you called him again?"

I was too stunned to really answer...how was it that this creature knew about that incident? My head was beginning to hurt from how hard I was working it, trying to understand what all that was going on. A few seconds passed before an answer crawled out of my mouth. "S...spectreon," was all I managed to speak.

"That's right, though it goes by "Spook", if I'm not mistaken. Not the most original of names, but I've heard worse. Good thing it calmed down, huh? We wouldn't be having this little chat if it hadn't. Anyway, back to why you're here. You see, many groups in the past have tried to step into my territory by artificially creating new creatures or mucking with ones that I've already created. Naturally, I can't allow such actions to go unpunished, so-"

"What about Porygon?" I asked, telling my mind that I'd figure things out later. Seemed to work, for now at least.

"Porygon was created in cyberspace, which is a man-made realm. I've no control over what happens there."

"And Castform?"

"...Okay, you got me on that one, but the damn thing's cool. How many Pokemon do you know of that can change like it does just because of the weather? Now stop trying to disprove my point, or I won't be so nice!" Enter a small pause, followed with Arceus clearing it's throat. "You've trespassed twice into my realm, and for that, I'm gonna do something I've been wanting to for a while now, dear scientist. You lived your life as a human studying us Pokemon, focusing primarily on those of the Ghost cast. You've pondered over how their daily activities, and a few not-so-daily ones, are carried out. But what you did todeserve this is that you forced the creation of, not one, but two new Pokemon breeds. It is because of that that you have been charged with living one lifetime _AS_ a Pokemon."

"...That's it? You're going to make me live the life of a Pokemon?" I asked, not really sure that this would count as a "punishment". "Seems kinda light to me."

"You keep telling yourself that. Dialga! We're done here; begin the rewind!"

I was about to say something else, but the smirk that graced Arceus's face stopped me. A bright light sudden enveloped me, and then...darkness.

The sound of a humming machine, dulled by the sound of churning liquids was the first thing I had heard. I felt light...almost weightless. Muffled voices were the next thing that I heard, though they were drowned out by the machine to really make anything out at first.

"You'd think that a smart guy like him would have known to be careful when crossing a street, but no. He was too damn focused on his notes to notice anything. Not a pretty sight, or so I heard. Mandatory closed casket, so you know it had to have been messy," a slightly deep voice said, fading in and out of clarity as he spoke, more and more sounds, like those of machines going to work started filtering out the voice more and more. The sensation of weightlessness began to leave my body as I felt a slight pulling force from beneath me.

"The draining sequence is complete," a new voice, lighter then the first, declared as the weightlessness faded completely. The feeling of movement quickly followed, filling the absence of the weightlessness, though it was short lived, as my head hit something hard with an audible "thunk". Movement now halted, all I felt now was cold and wet.


	3. What's in a name

My eyes opened up slowly, though quickly closed again before the blinding light could aggravate them further. When I finally opened them up again, I found the light more tolerable, though I found myself staring at my feet as well. I knew the metal-looking things were mine because they moved when I willed them to. I turned to look higher up, breaking away from staring at the shiny appendages, and saw this blackish purple animal staring up at me, its dark eyes seeming to look through my very core. I didn't know why, but I felt as if I should've known this thing, despite not knowing what it was or why.

"Spook!" I heard, the sounding off of the lighter voice causing us both to turn towards its owner. What I saw was a dark-green eyed person with blond hair and glasses on the delicate looking face, though further detailing was distracted by the sight of Spook walking off from where I sat, stepping lightly on its four legs before taking a small jump though a crack in a door far too small for it to have naturally fit though.

"Still creeps me out when he does that," the other voice, this one deeper and belonging to the other person in the room, a red-headed, brown-eyed person who wore similar attire as that of the Blondie person, said, seconds before his head went backwards sharply, the rest of the body following closely behind, with a loud yelp. The now vacant area was occupied now with a floating dark mass, with what I assumed was its head tipped with pink ends, and a line of red orbs around the base of it. It had started laughing lightly.

"Ah...Still as lovely as ever," it cooed out as the red head worked at getting back to its feet, the voice that came from the floating mass slightly higher in pitch then the blond's own.

"Banshee..." the red-head hissed, causing the floating creature to fly off through the door, leaving it open for the rest of the world to see what laid inside. A lighter yelp followed shortly after the thing had disappeared, this one lighter, though just as surprised. From where the blond stood, I saw that what looked to be a purple balloon had gotten itself tangled up in the light yellow hair. Said balloon had a yellow "x" shape attached to it, just under two black eyes, and what could only be described as a small tuft of a cloud on top of it all. Further inspection revealed that the two cord-like things, which ended in little heart-shapes, that dangled off of it's body were actually wrapped around a section of the golden locks, showing that it had grabbed her hair instead of just getting tangled in it. It looked like the balloon was trying to reenact what had happened to the red-headed person earlier, but to little avail. The blond, after recovering from the sudden intrusion to her personal space, took the balloon-thing away from her hair, giggling slightly as she moved it to where it was more easily seen.

"You shouldn't do that, Zep," the blond said, gently scolding the odd creature in her hands. Zep, considering that is what the blond had called it, had started to look a little disheartened from the verbal reprimanding, which the blond responded to by wrapping it in her arms, and pressing it against her chest. "Need you to do something for me, though. Go get Doppler, and bring him here, alright? We'll need him to show our new guest around," she explained, motioning towards where I still sat, confused beyond belief. Zep's eyes look like they had taken an excited shine to them, and I saw it start heading over for me, though stopping before he could actually get near by the blond. "Ah, not now. Get Doppler, Zep. You can chat and be friendly after wards, okay?"

"Otay!" Zep said before hurriedly wandering out of the room again, using the same exit that Banshee had.

"I swear...we work in a friggin haunted house," the red-head grumbled audibly, scratching at where the first thing had tugged at his head. The blond laughed lightly at the remark.

"It's not so bad, if you think about it," she replied with, walking over to where I sat. "Now...how about we get you out of there?" she asked me, bringing her hand forward, fingers splayed out and palm showing. I thought she was going to smack me in the forehead with it, but I saw the limb suddenly stop, pressed against an invisible thing, the flesh smooshing slightly from the pressure applied. My own hand went to explore what was going on with hers, though it too hit the clear barrier. My other hand join in the exploration of this weird thing, the blond's hand removing itself, turning to give the red-head a small nod. I wasn't exactly sure what was going on, but the sudden jerking of my hands in an upward motion caused me to pull them back rather quickly, the machines humming to life yet again. Annoyed at this thing and it's unprovoked agitation towards me, I balled up my hand and swung the newly created fist at it, somehow knowing that a satisfying smashing sound would be my reward for breaking the damn thing. Sadly, no such sound was made, my fist passing harmlessly through the barrier, myself tumbling out from the momentum as it carried me along. I landed on the floor with a hard thud on my back, staring up at the ceiling in utter disbelief as the machine let out a happy little hiss before falling silent yet again. "Now now...we don't want to break the expensive machine," the blond told me, helping me to my feet as I regarded the contraption with a cold glare. I'd have to deal with it later...

"You know..." the red-head said, reaffirming his presence within the room. "We still don't really know what to call it, what gender it is, or what category it fits into exactly," he stated, counting off on his fingers as he said those things."

"We do need to call it something, but what?" the blond asked. I had noticed that, compared to the red-head, the blond's chest seemed to jut out a bit more. I felt like a knew there was a reason for it, but the answer escaped my mind. "Hey...Doesn't it look kind of like a suit of armor? You know...like from way-back when."

"Way ahead of ya. The old man already made that comment, calling it a "Dullahan"."

"...And that is?"

"It's a type of fairy-thing that calls out a person's name at the place where they're supposed to die. Like, if it called out my name right here, "Boom!" I'd die."

"I thought you didn't like ghost stuff?" 

"I don't. But, if you're gotta understand a fan of them, it's not such a bad idea to know where to look up info on whatever he may prattle on about," the red-head replied, adding a light shrug.

"So it's a dullahan, then?"

"Only by look. It'd be better to call it something else, though. So people don't get it confused with the story, we'd be better off calling it something else. Dullahans were also called "Gan Ceann", so...what about combining the two words?"

"You mean like "Ceanhan"?"

"Nah...too weird." 

"...What about "Dulgan"?"

"Mmm...what if we changed the "L" to an "R"? "Durgan"...Easier to say, in my opinion. Easier to remember, too."

"So it's Durgan?"

"Why not just call him "Ugly"?" called a third voice, the two humans and myself turning to look over at who made the reply. In the doorway stood a dark purple bipedal creature, it's arms folded while it's body leaned against the door frame, its red eyes looking directly at me.

"I found Boogie!" Zep announced happily, appearing just over the spiked creature.

"Oh! Doppler, good timing. We were just figuring out a name for this guy here," the blond said, resting her hand atop of my head...neck...shoulders...whever you want to call it. "Would you mind showing it around while we finalize things here?"

"Eh, I got nothing better to do," Doppler/Boogie said, shrugging lightly as to removed his form from the frame of the door. "C'mon, Zep's been yapping nonstop the whole time about some weird metal thing with a face, and a break from it would be nice."

At that point, I found myself thinking only one thing: "Dear Arceus...The hell is going on here?"


	4. History lesson

"Before I start getting into specifics, there's a few general things I need to cover first," the spiky purple thing started, the small balloonish creature known as Zep floating over and around me. "We live in a world that has two major types of creatures coexisting in it, and those are humans, and us Pokémon. The two you saw back there, the one with the red hair and the one with the yellow hair...those two are humans." he continued, moving his hands around his head the first time he mentioned the word "hair". I figured that what he had ment; the colored masses that rested on top of the heads of those two in that room back there. Letting his hands return his side, he continued speaking. "Sometime, they're a little darker, but they're basically all the same shape. You, Zep, and myself, however, are-"

"Hollow!" Zep chimed in excitedly, cutting off Doppler/Boogie's speech.

"I am not hollow. Gaseous if anything, but in no way hollow," came the reply.

"Not you...him!" Zep said, still giddy about his discovery. He motioned towards me before continuing on about his find. "He's got nothing inside him!" This caused the other purple creature to stop his explanation in order to see what all the fuss was about.

"Huh...Would you look at that; he really is hollow."

"Anyway...you were saying?" I said, making a grunting noise in my throat. Why I did it, I'm not entirely sure; it just seemed appropriate at the time. And, seeing as how Doppler/Boogie went back on topic afterwards, it apparently was the right thing to do.

"Yes, as I was saying, you, me, and Zep are all pokémon. You'll be meeting some others as well, but in a bit. Now, unlike humans, not all pokémon have the same look as every other pokémon out there; some look like animals, some look like plants, and then there's those that look like Zep. Objects, in other words."

While this was going on, Zep was busying himself, sucking up air, then letting out the air he had just sucked in. This sent him flying uncontrollably around the hallway, screaming and giggling in delight. The noise of his travel, a raspy buzzing sound, was almost as amusing as watching the balloonish creature turn impossibly sharp turns at break-neck speeds.

"One time, we got a purple, real balloon, and taped a yellow "x" on it with electrician's tape. Kid played with it for hours, thinking it was another driffloon," the spiked, purple creature said lowly, nudging me in the side lightly with his elbow, watching Zep take his short-lived, high-speed flight. The grin on his face told me it had been a rather amusing thing to see, apparently.

"What's a "driffloon"?" I asked curiously.

"It's the species of pokémon that Zep is. I, myself, am a gengar, the highest level of evolution from the gastly line. Call me "Boogie", though."

"Then...why did that...uh...the human with the yellow hair..." I started, feeling as if I should've known something about her, but I couldn't remember what.

"What about her?"

"Why'd she call you "Doppler" if your name's actually "Boogie"?"

"Well..." Boogie started, sounding a little hesitant at first. "As you may or may not know, we're in a research lab. This lab was started by a professor who's life revolved around ghost-type pokémon. Hell, before he became a pokémon researcher, he was an apprentice at the Ecruteak City gym, one of the two recognized gyms that specialize in the ghost-type. Ecruteak, however, was located in the Johto region of the world; the other gym is here in the Sinnoh region. I'll go over that more later, though," he explained, dismissing the later facts with a wave of his hand. "Anyway., his fondness for our type eventually bloomed into wonder and curiosity. It was then that he decided to become a researcher, and a respectable one at that. But, that was at least twenty-five years ago."

"Ya didn't answer the question~," Zep chimed in before zipping around the hallway again.

"I was getting to that!" Boogie said, whirling around to point a finger at where Zep was only a moment ago. Collecting himself, he continued. "Anyway, long story short, he found a way to duplicate pure ghost-type pokémon DNA, and that's partly how Spook was born. Eevees sure are an odd creature...but that's beside the point. About a month after Spook's evolution, he was killed. Hit a lot of us pretty hard, believe you, me. It's out of loyalty to him that we're still around here, helping out when and where we can. He's also the one that called me "Boogie". I'm not her pokémon, so I prefer to go with my real name."

"Why the long winded answer, then? Why not just say that?" I found myself asking, understanding both more and less then I had before at the same time.

"Sets up the mood, and avoids unnecessary questions," he beamed.

"You're nuts."

"Why, thank you," Boogie said, bowing lightly.

"We tell him that all the time," a new, softer voice said. Zep stopped sailing around the room, his face lighting up greatly while I turned towards the new voice's owner.

"Momma~!" the small balloon cried, rushing towards what looked like a larger, though slightly different, version of himself. Zep crashed headlong into the new creature, and both began laughing happily.

"You couldn't have missed me that much in such a short time, Zep," the larger balloonish thing said, patting Zep atop of his head endearingly.

"Ya-huh!" Zep protested. Boogie took the time after Zep's childish antics to throw himself into the conversation as well.

"Where are the others at, Lyn?" he asked. "It'd be a good idea to get the introductions done and over with soon. They'll probably take the new guy here in the morning to figure out and get all of his stats recorded."

"They're all in the usual spot, Boogie," she said, taking her attention off of Zep now to look towards me. She gave me a polite bow, having quieted Zep and his playfulness for the moment. "It's nice to meet you. My name is Lyn, a drifblim. You're already met my son, Zep."

I found myself returning the nod. "I...uh...don't really have a name. And, from what I can guess, I'm a dhurgan. It's nice to meet you both, too," I said, finding myself with a light smile as I answered.

"Alright then! C'mon, we've got more to meet," Boogie said, suddenly pushing me to walk forwards.

"Oh yes," Lyn chimed in." I'm sure the professor would love you meet you."

"Is he wearing that stupid thing again?"

"When doesn't he wear it?" Lyn said, giggling lightly.

"Wait..."professor"?" I asked, echoing the word in confusion.


End file.
